The Daily Times du lieu suivant : Salisbury, Maryland • 11

LIFE TV13 Business14 Comics15 YLE The Daily Times Friday, July 14, 1995 Page 1 1 Tracy SAHLER It i i i The lasting impressions of vacations My father and stepmother were driving all the way from Maryland to Colorado to pick us up, so I had plenty of time to think about whether I should take my Sheltie, Vasha, on the vacation camping trip to Wyoming. I come from a devout fist-making family, so I divided a sheet of paper into two sides, labeled one pro and the other con, and began writing down the arguments for (I'd miss her if she stayed home) and against (she throws up in the car). In the end the pros finished slightly ahead. Things went reasonably lums Hwto by 1 hare bwckwaU well until we were driving toward a lake to fish. Vasha, who had been sitting beside me, looking out the window, turned to my brother, looked Mike SeideL who forecasted weather on WMDT and WBOC, now appears evenings and late nights on The Weather Channel.

Soul, back from the '70s Middle-aged listeners abandon young artists By TONY GREEN St Petersburg Time Soul music has been good to Vinny Brown. Just a few short months ago, his station, the Manhattan-based WRKS-FM 98.7 (Kiss FM), was languishing in eighth place among FM radio stations in New York City. Now the station, with Brown as program director, is sitting atop the heap in one of radio's most competitive markets. The formula? Start with the main ingredient: The Main Ingredient. Add some Rufus, some Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, Teddy Pendergrass, and the O'Jays.

Old-school soul music and smooth all day and all night Listeners are eating it up. "We aren't the No. 1 urban station," Brown. said, noting that the station has doubled its market share since January. "We're the No.

1 station, period. The market here was starved for that music so badly that when we made the switch at the beginning of this year, it just took off. I wouldn't doubt that there will be some discussions at some other stations before the end of the year." It seems improbable, given the music landscape of the past few years, that "70s soul music would be making a comeback in 1995. But then again, who thought we'd ever see a new album from Isaac Hayes? Or a Rose Royce song on a rap album? Or that big, cuddly Barry White not pelvis-pumping R. Kelly or salaciously gyrating Ad-ina Howard would be the the eex symbol of the moment? Some of the impetus behind the soul trend comes from middle-aged urban listeners, a market that hasn't been specifically targeted by retro music peddlers.

Like their rock counterparts, a lot of older African-Americans are turned off by much of what they hear corning from the younger artists, embracing the sounds of The O'Jays, Kool The Gang and Parliament with the same vigor that some older white listeners take to the Eagles, the Rolling Stones, and modern country. Record companies like Rhino and Polygram have made their bids with soul-oriented compilations like "Smooth Grooves" and "Funk Essentials." Demand is high, said Polygram's director of catalog development Harry Weinger. "The whole thing is a blast," Weinger said. "I never thought Td be driving in New York City and hearing Barry White, Heatwave and Earth Wind Fire on the radio again." at for at his face, and threw up. It wasn't safe to laugh about it then, but for years now it's provided me with a good snicker whenever I recalled it Richard was always bigger and older than me and so had the upper hand in most sibling conflicts, but that tune I had the secret weapon.

It would never have happened at home. That's why I'm grateful to my parents all of them for the vacations they troubled themselves to take us on when we were kids. They provided memories like no Salisbury's Mike Seidel turns childhood hobby into a career with The Weather Channel Christina Schroder of Bowie, then an SSU senior and now his wife. Seidel left for Atlanta in February 1992 when he gdt an offer from The Weather Channel. "WBOC was a fine job, but I was just waiting for the right opportunity," he said.

"It was a big decision to leave home and my family after having been back several years. But even though I left home, my family could still watch me." And they would get to see more of him on camera, as well. At WBOC, Seidel was his own producer, drawing his own weather maps and doing his own forecasts, but he was only on the air between six and seven minutes a day. At TWC, he is one of 22 on-camera meteorologists. Others behind the scenes do the maps and forecasts.

He comes in lw hours before air time, gets briefed and prepares the program log. Out of the next four hours, he and a partner will talk 80 minutes each, ad-libbing the entire time. It's not as easy as it sounds. "The biggest challenge is to keep your energy up for 80 minutes, saying the same things See SEIDEL, Page 12 By GEORGE ROACHE Daily Times Staff Writer SALISBURY Mike Seidel grew up with his head in the clouds. At age 7 he was put measuring snowfall with a ruler.

At 13 he managed to buy first-class weather instruments, using them for the next 10 years to keep daily records of temperatures and precipitation. That one-time hobby led to high school jobs doing weather forecasts on the radio, a master's degree in meteorology and stints at WMDT and WBOC as a weatherman. Now more than 59 million cable subscribers can check with him before leaving the house without an umbrella or planning that weekend barbecue by the pool. Seidel, 38, appears evenings and late nights on The Weather Channel, the 24-hour source of beach forecasts, tropical updates and travel conditions. Standing before the computer-controlled cameras at TWC's studios in Atlanta, he tells weather-conscious viewers what to expect in everyday terms they can understand.

"My job is primarily to disseminate information, to degree in meteorology from Pennsylvania State University. He landed his first television weather job when WMDT signed on in late May 1980, and kept it for the next two summers. While home writing his thesis in September 1983, he got an offer from a Greenville, N.C., TV station where he worked until January 1989. In a budget-cutting move, he was replaced by a housewife and a disc jockey. He was unemployed for seven months despite sending out tapes everywhere he could.

"This is a very subjective business," he said "The only other business where you get rejected more is as an actor in Los Angeles. Everybody wants to be an actor but not everyone has the credentials to be a weatherman." Finally, a position opened at WBOC, and in August 1989, Seidel went from making $40,000 a year to $18,200. It was a great opportunity, though, because he was coming home, he said. It was also the year he met present the weather in an educational, upbeat manner," Seidel said. "Surveys show they (viewers) want to learn.

I have to explain tough concepts in elementary terms." Seidel, son of Sam and Lynn Seidel of Salisbury, fashioned his career as an on-camera meteorologist out of a dual fascination with broadcasting and the weather. Between 1973 and 1983, this 1975 graduate of Wicomico Senior High School worked for four radio stations as a disc jockey, weatherman and salesman. "The first thing I ever did on radio was a weather forecast at said. "Norman Glenn opened the door to my broadcasting career by letting me hang out at the station." After graduating from Salisbury State College in 1979 with a double major in mathematics and geography, Seidel earned his master Tough bosses often inspire the best work went on only a coupie 01 -vacations with my Colorado parents because summers were spent with my Maryland parents. But we did go to back-country Mexico on spring break and one summer toured Utah's Arches National Park and the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

Mexico: the longest walk I ever made to a swimming hole, almost straight down a canyon, past wild burros, to reach a crystal clear, bitingly cold Buying sweet, cold orange sodas with our pesos from a ramshackle store. Careening along a narrow dirt road, the driver of our van paying more attention to his pipe than to the thousand-foot drop-off we were in eminent danger of experiencing. Finally, limping home in the green VW microbus we bought for the trip, fourth gear gone and a bungee cord holding it in third. That microbus also figured in our next vacation in Utah and Arizona, one Fd like to repeat someday with a vehicle that functions, food and cold water. Most of my childhood vacations were directed by Daddy, and involved crosscountry trips or week-long excursions to visit family.

I remember the beautiful Ghost Ranch in New Mexico, fresh-picked sweet red raspberries from a relative's berry patch in Michigan, walking through the shallows of Little Lake, Michigan, looking for snails, and ice cream with Daddy's parents in Chicago. On summer's one trip to the beach, camping at Shad Landing and stopping at roadside stands to buy Silver Queen corn and aches. Bears in ellowstone and Shenandoah national parks. Busy days ending with Daddy's stories that always reached the night's cliffhanger too soon. Vacations are not frivolous.

They take time and money, but they also pay dividends for years to come. Mark PATINKIN a label he probably wouldn't love, but sorry, Al, it's accurate. Nevertheless, he was tough in that chair, feeling his job was to get employees to do assignments quick and right, rather than being their counselor. Finally, there was Jack Mo-naghan. He was my first column editor.

When he didn't like something I wrote, he wasn't real diplomatic. "This is rat-dirt, kid," he'd say. Actually, not quite that. I cleaned up his language a bit Today, now that I've been at it a while, a line like that wouldn't work. And it didn't help my ego then.

But when you re fresh meat on the job, and you drop the ball, it helps you in the long run to be told it straight. Of course, this is the '90s and bosses are supposed to be youv friend. Like I said, no argument there. But when I look back, it sure is interesting what lessons stuck with me most MARK PATINKIN, a Providence, R.I., writer, is a regular contributor to The Daily Times. Readers may write to him at the Providence Journal, 75 Fountain SL, Providence, R.I., 02902.

I just saw another "How-To-Manage" article saying it's better to be a nice boss than a tough one. As an employee, I of course agree. Then I got to thinking about which bosses I've learned the most from. The first, Wayne Brasler, was in high school. He wasn't technically a boss, he was a teacher, but he ran the school newspaper, which I worked on, so it was close.

One week, I finished an article a day late. Because this was also a journalism class assignment, my article was part of my grade. Mr. Brasler read it carefully. "This is one of the best things you've ever written," he said.

Then, without looking up: "But I'm giving you an It was my first Td gotten a few D's, but never an F. "But you said it was good," I told him. Tou missed your deadline," Mr. Brasler said. "You can't do that in journalism.

But the school paper a weekly didn't go to press un? til the next morning. The article would make it. knew that when you're a boss, being nice or fatherly is fine most of the time, but not always. I've made a few other mistakes since then, but far fewer than had Mr. Smith failed to warn me once and never because I thought a story was so minor it didn't matter.

Al Johnson was my first boss at the Journal-Bulletin, where he used to be night city editor. For two years, I was terrified of the man, partly because I thought he kept hanging up on me from exasperation. I spent several years in the paper's community news bureaus, and whenever I had a big story, he'd call and ask me two questions: "What do you have?" And, "When will you have it?" Then: click. Only later did someone tell me he was so busy he didn't have time to say goodbye. Also, he wasnt the chit-chatty kind.

A few times, Td come up to him in the city room after some assignment, and start my conversation with some funny story about my night, but he'd cut me off. "Never mind that What do you have? And when will you have it?" In time, I found he was basically shy, even a sweetheart "You still missed your assigned deadline. I hated Mr. Brasler for about two days. He usually was the funnest teacher in the school.

How could he be so suddenly inflexible? Well, I'm glad he was. That was one of the best things he ever did for me. Yes, I still occasionally push deadlines, but if it weren't for that Td be far worse. My first job out of college was on a newspaper in Utica, N.Y. The top editor was Gil Smith, a serious but fatherly figure.

I thought I was hot stuff. I thought I was too good for minor assignments, like rewriting press releases. I did them, but hurriedly. Then one day while doing a short blurb on a Rotary Club luncheon I switched the names of the club president and the guest speaker. We printed it that way.

A junior editor brought it to my attention with some amusement and said we needed to do a correction. I was amused, too what was tlfe harm; it was only a Rotary lunch. Then I felt a tap on my shoulder. Gil Smith. Not a word he just motioned me into his office.

He asked if I realized what Td done. I admitted I'd made a mistake, but told Mr. Smith that at least it was minor. His eyes narrowed. "Listen to me, young man," he said.

"Most businesspeople in town are going to that lunch, and a 'minor' mistake like that tells them we don't know what we're doing." What he said next almost made me start crying. "Around here," he said, "we warn them once, then we fire 'em. I'm warning you once." That night, I called my mother to tell her what a mean, unfair man I worked for and maybe I should apply somewhere else. But he wasn't mean. He just i I.